Readiness to Get Disappointed

A readiness to get disappointed is not pessimism, realism or “just how you are.” It is a learned response that shapes how life and relationships meet you—often long before anything actually happens. In women healing the mother wound, this readiness lives quietly beneath awareness, guiding expectations, choices and emotional reactions in everyday moments: how you ask for support, how you speak up at work, how close you allow yourself to get in relationships. In this article, I explore how this readiness forms, how it keeps repeating through unconscious expectations, and how somatic work makes it possible to update these inner scripts—so that in daily life you move from bracing for disappointment to allowing yourself to be met, supported and fulfilled.

BEFORE I get into it I’ve got some exciting news—I’m now seeing women for 1:1 healing the mother wound in Zurich, Wednesdays 14.00-18.00. Reach out to schedule

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A “readiness to get disappointed” is one of the core obstacles for women who grew up with a complex, chaotic or emotionally unreliable mother.

This readiness shows up in both small and big life-defining moments— as an expectation to be let down by close people, as a frequent bracing for a rejection, or as dampening your hopes and excitement.

Perhaps for you, it sounds like an inner voice saying, “why does this always happen to me?!” when something goes wrong or “This will not last,” when something good happens.

The readiness to get disappointed appears whether something welcome or unwelcome occurs.

These expectations are not your fault or a personality trait.

The mother wound is a rupture in our relationship with ourselves, others and life—rooted in a primary rupture with your mother.

When essential emotional needs go unmet in your relationship with your mother, disappointment doesn’t stay just as a memory of things that didn’t happen.

It becomes part of formative experience, unconsciously informing your inner mechanism of building expectations for:

What you can expect from yourself

What you can expect from others

What you can expect from life

Sometimes women tell me “I shouldn’t have expectations”, as if their expectations themselves are the problem. This leads to immense and unrealistic effort in just being

But expectations are information for our nervous system. They act like a safety belt that filters who, what and how feels safe for us. We can’t live without them.

What we expect has a direct link to our confidence, our self-esteem and our capacity to make decisions we can stand behind.

So when your earliest relationship failed to meet you emotionally you carry that relationship inside you, like an internal book of life which now, can show up like this:

🦩 Assuming a friend will forget your exam date before the exam even happens—before they’ve had a chance to show up

🦩 Arguing with your partner in your head before a planned conversation, already convinced they won’t listen

🦩 Hearing your mum’s voice playing in your head, “why bother” when you’re about to change career path or make an unexpected decision

🦩 Protecting your privacy fiercely for fear your boundaries will be violated while longing for closeness with friends or your children

🦩 Postponing asking for a raise at work because you’re expecting to be rejected

There are three main levels of expectations: Biological expectations *Mental expectations **Unconscious expectations

Biological expectations are exactly what they say on the tin: a set of instinctual expectations we are all born with.

Some of these are: Expecting to be cared for by your mother or expecting a threat from loud noises or hostile gestures.

Mental expectations are conscious narratives. Thoughts like “I deserve to get help in the household”, "I deserve to be appreciate for who I truly am” are often not a lived experience but an idea we want to live by.

Unconscious expectations are where the mother wound lives—and where healing can take place.

These sit below awareness. They override affirmations, positive thinking or rationalising.

In my 1:1 work, I help women bring unconscious expectations into awareness, so they can update a default response to get disappointed to an expectation to be supported and fulfilled.

In a session we might track this expectation to be disappointed in:

🦩 Excusing others’ behaviours and explaining them away

🦩 A readiness to name the reasons why you “won’t be met anyways”

🦩 Labelling your needs and desires as exaggerations or faults

🦩 Beginning to speak about your feelings, then switching unconsciously to describe their mother’s difficult life

Over 14 years of working with the mother wound, I’ve seen how readiness for disappointment quietly shapes lives:

🦩  Inner criticism–-Irina*

Irina moved countries as a young woman to escape her mother’s relentless criticism and domestic control.

She built an impressive career and earned a high-level degree.

In one of our sessions, she discovered that she anticipated dismissal from female authority figures, so she didn’t bother standing up for herself.

Discovering this pattern allowed her to finally change something substantial in her understanding of boundaries.

🦩 Emotional baggage—Shelby

Shelby grew up in a restrictive, closed community where gifts were forbidden and her mum’s protection from emotional and verbal abuse was completely absent.

In our work, Shelby was surprised to discover that even though she broke free from that community, she was still captured by other people’s expectations and needs as a defence—believing she had play by the rules to stay safe.

Noticing how being constantly available was her first way of creating a sense of safety for herself.

🦩 Marrying your mother—Tamara

Tamara lived a few decades with her partner. She cared for everyone’s needs with love until she reached a breaking point.

In our work she realised that she ran away from a childhood filled with arguments and shouts, yet chose a partner whose temper was as volatile and loud as her mother’s.

Realising this gave her the capacity to articulate more clearly what she needed from the relationship and stop tolerating familiar level of intensity.

A readiness to get disappointed can be interrupted through deep, somatic work that changes the inner, unconscious script.

One of the tools I offer women to update these expectations is guided awareness—translating therapy insights into daily life changes.

This tailored guidance, based on the exploration we do together, helps you—without extra work—to:

🦩 Break the hidden loops that keep you returning to familiar patterns and habits

🦩 Integrate therapy insights into your daily life

🦩 Become more autonomous in your healing process beyond the session

Together, the session and the guided awareness lead to:

🦩 Finding the words and the courage to initiate intimate conversations with friends or a partner, and having the confidence you’ll be heard—or guide others when you’re not listened to

🦩 Changing the course of your life or career with the confidence that you know what’s best for you

🦩 Discerning when women and people in authority are allies, and knowing how to protect your position and energy when needed

🦩Trusting your needs and dreams without fearing regret or shame

I’d love to help you make this shift—from a readiness to get disappointed to READY TO BE MET!

When unconscious expectations come into awareness, change begins to ripple through daily life quickly.

Healing the mother wound 1:1 is now open to new clients.

You can book a call to check out what we can do together.

I always start with a free call, because I know how subversive the readiness to get disappointed can be.

This call gives you the chance to taste—risk-free—what we can do together and how it fits your needs.

HERE’S HOW IT’LL HAPPEN:

🦩 Click below and choose your best time for the free call

🦩 Fill out the form to tell me about yourself and what you’d like to make happen

🦩 Complete and receive a confirmation to your inbox

SCHEDULE A CALL NOW

*All names are pseudonyms

P.S. Want to stop bracing for disappointment ? You can start your year differently with healing the mother wound 👉 Book a free call to see how

P.P.S. Want more examples of how inherited beliefs dissolve once the mother wound is addressed? You’ll find stories inside my private podcast BirthRite 👉 Download here

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Shelly's is a trauma-informed, certified Hakomi therapist helping women who've had a complex relationship with their mother discover the hidden impacts of the mother wound 👉 so they can thrive in their lives & careers